Mister Sharp
by ASongInMyHead
Summary: Before Deryn ever went to London she had to change her identity. With Jaspert's help, Mister Dylan Sharp was born.
1. Mister Sharp

_**Mister **_**Sharp**

Deryn Sharp looked in the mirror, feeling more than a little agitated. She was alone in her bedroom. Mum and the aunties had spent the better part of a month ignoring her, so she only had her brother Jaspert to talk to. He had returned to Glasgow from London three weeks earlier, but would go back to London the next week, with Deryn in tow. Deryn looked at her reflection, scrutinizing herself. In her dress, with her hair done up all proper like Mum made her, she most definitely looked like a girl. But not for long…

"Deryn? Deryn? Can I come in?" Deryn turned from her image as someone rapped their knuckles one her doorframe.

"Come in, Jaspert!" She called back. "Did you bring the shears?"

"Aye," Jaspert said as he opened the door and entered. "Mum nearly burst into tears when she saw me with them."

"Of course she did," Deryn muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, don't be too hard on her," Jaspert said. "She doesn't want her only daughter getting hurt."

"No, she doesn't want her only daughter wearing _trousers_."

Jaspert merely shrugged. "Maybe that, too."

Deryn sighed and Jaspert put down the shears.

"What are you doing?" Deryn asked. "We're doing this now!"

"Now? Are you mad? Mum will kill us!"

"I don't care Jaspert!" Deryn said, sitting down heavily on her bed. "I'm damn sure of what I want, and if Mum doesn't like that, so be it!"

Jaspert looked at his sister for a long moment, and then picked up the scissors. "Fine. But if Mum takes these shears too our throats, don't blame me."

Deryn grinned and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Jaspert!"

Deryn dragged a stool from the corner of the room and placed it in front of the mirror. She quickly pulled all the pins from her hair, so that it tumbled down her shoulders. Sitting down on the stool, she folded her hands neatly on her lap, waiting. Jaspert walked over to her and pulled at a lock of hair. Using the shears, he carefully snipped it off, and long, blonde strands fell to the floor. Deryn watched silently as each lock fell to floor. She had not expected to feel anything, but she felt a surprising sense of loss as the yellow pile of hair began to build up on the floor.

"There," Jaspert said when he had finished.

Deryn looked up, startled. She hadn't noticed him finish. She squinted in annoyance, seeing a few longer strands at the front.

"Give me the shears!"

She grabbed the shears from Jaspert and hacked at the front of her hair. When she was finished, she threw the shears on the bed and stood up. Both of them looked at her hair through the mirror, their mouths slightly agape. Deryn slowly brought her hand up to her scalp, feeling the unfamiliar shortness. Her hair felt bristly and strange. She quickly rubbed her hand through it, and some excess strands fell off. Her hair now looked ruffled, and felt light as a feather; no longer such a bother. She grinned. It was perfect.

"Well," Jaspert said, after nearly a minute of silence. "You don't look like a boy."

Deryn turned from the mirror to face him.

"Jaspert," she said, indignantly. "I'm wearing a barking _dress_!"

"True. And we'll have to sweep up all that hair, before Mum sees. She'll have a fit enough when she sees your new hair, I can't imagine what it would be like if she saw the rest on the floor," he replied. "Do you have the clothes, then?"

Deryn when to her armoire and pulled out a man's uniform. "The tailor just finished fixing them up yesterday."

"No doubt he thought you were mighty daft, paying all that for some boys' clothes." Jaspert sat down on the stool Deryn had previously occupied.

"Sod off."

Deryn sent Jaspert out of the room, so that she could try the clothes on. She had already put them on a dozen times since the day before, but not with her boy-hair. Once she was dressed she walked back to the mirror.

"Barking spiders," she breathed to her reflection. Standing in front of her stood a young boy. Yes, his features were light and delicate, and without her long hair he looked a squick younger than usual. But he looked like a boy, nonetheless. She called Jaspert back into the room.

"That's bloody terrifying!" He said loudly, when he re-entered.

"How do I look? Be honest" Deryn asked anxiously.

"You look… you look like a boy." Jaspert stammered.

"Really? I don't want to hear answer that's filled with clart."

"Yes. Just… lower voice, or you'll sound like a ninny."

"Like this?" Deryn deeply lowered her voice.

"A bit higher, don't be a dolt." Jaspert said with a laugh.

Deryn looked back into the mirror. "I need a name."

"A name?"

"A boy's name. And a new identity. You must have told the airmen about your family; that you have a sister. When you introduce me I can be… your cousin. I'll be your cousin." Deryn said.

"Alright then," Jaspert nodded with a smile. "And what about your name?"

Deryn looked at Jaspert with a serious face. "Dylan."

Jaspert's smiled faded. "Dylan? Like Da?"

"Like Da," she confirmed.

To her surprise, Jaspert's jaunty grin returned. "You know what? I think he'd like that."

Deryn smiled, too. "Do you think I can do it? Do you think it'll work?"

"Yes," he said confidently. "You're no softie. Just impress them next week, you better. I'll be damned before I see you on your way back to Glasgow. You're a better airman… woman… than most of the men in London."

Deryn turned back to mirror.

"Hello," she said in her new voice. "I am midshipman Dylan Sharp. Let me at those beasties!"

**A/N – After finishing the amazing piece of literature that was **_**Behemoth**_**, I was inspired to write this… please drop a review!**


	2. Miss Sharp

_**Miss **_**Sharp**

Deryn paced back and forth in her bedroom. Jaspert watched, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a slightly amused smile tugging at his lips.

"You've been pacing for over an hour," Jaspert said.

"That's a barking lie," Deryn responded. "Just give me a few more minutes."

"That's the fifth time you've said that," he muttered softly.

Deryn ignored this. Instead, she took a deep breath and faced her brother.

"Alright. I'm ready."

"Fine. Just try to control your swearing."

"Funny, Jaspert."

Deryn turned to the mirror. Her freshly cut hair framed her face like a great yellow cloud. Her boys' clothes covered any figure that she might have possessed. Although she had only been dressed as a boy for barely two hours, she already felt used to them. They felt good.

With a nod to her brother, Deryn pushed open her bedroom door. She walked through the house with Jaspert at her heel, following the sound of voices. The voices led them to the house's parlor, where their mother and her three sisters were having tea.

"Mum," Deryn said softly.

The four women were either so deep in conversation, or continuing to ignore the Deryn, as they had been doing since she told them of her plan.

"Mum!" Jaspert said, louder than his sister.

Their mother turned in the chair.

"Jaspe- Aah!" She jumped violently upon seeing Deryn, spilling tea onto her dress.

"Mum," Deryn said, as gently as possible. "It told you that I would go through with this."

"Deryn!" Her mother gasped, dabbing furiously at her skirt with a napkin, avoiding her daughter's eyes. "This has gone too far."

"Yes," said Auntie Margaret. "You've gone and made your poor mother upset!"

Deryn bit back an angry retort.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," she said instead.

"Deryn, how could you?" Her mother asked. She got up, placing a trembling hand on Deryn's shorn hair. Almost immediately, she retracted her hand, and went back to her chair.

"You should apologize to your mother," Auntie Violet said.

"I just did!" Deryn said, harshly.

"Don't address your Aunt in that tone," Auntie Agnes said sharply.

"I'm sorry!"

"I think what Deryn means is that she wants to fly again, like she did with Da," Jaspert said, quickly. "You know how much she loves flying."

The four sitting women cringed at the mention of Jaspert and Deryn's father.

"I didn't say any of that!" Deryn hissed.

"Shut up!" Jaspert whispered, jabbing her in the ribs with his elbow.

"But why did you have to ruin yourself like this?" Her mother cried. "You look right terrible!"

"Thank you, Mum," Deryn said softly.

"I just… I just don't understand, Deryn. Why would you do this?"

"Jaspert's right, Mum. I want to fly again! It's all I've ever wanted."

Her mother put a hand over her face. "Couldn't you just read about things like that in books, like all the other girls?"

"But Mum," Deryn said. "I'm not like the other girls. I've never been like them. You know that."

"Why do you have to be so different?" Auntie Violet asked.

"I don't know. I don't think it's a bad thing, though."

"Isn't it?" Auntie Margaret said, sipping her tea.

"No! Can you imagine if everybody was the same bloody-"

Jaspert elbowed her again, harder this time.

"What I mean to say," Deryn began again. "Is that my mind has been made up since the day Da died. I'm sorry if it upsets you, but I'm going to join the British Air Service, if it's the last thing I do!"

With that, Deryn left the parlor. She closed the door behind her and went back to her room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she closed her eyes and rubbed her hands over them until she saw stars. She could hear Jaspert talking over Mum and the aunties. They were arguing. She made a mental note to thank him for all his help, later.

As much as she hated to see her family so upset, she knew what she had to do. She knew what she _would _do. If only things weren't so bloody complicated.


	3. Sharp Eye

**Sharp Eye**

Deryn drank in the noise and the sights at the train station, excited to leave Glasgow. Everywhere she looked all kinds of people pushed past her, more people then she'd ever seen in one place. Jaspert, who knew all about hustle and bustle from being in London, somehow ignored the view and marched onwards.

Deryn stopped walking and listened to a panhandler's music. He had shorn hair and a thick mustache, and was playing a high-strung fiddle. She watched in fascination as his hands flew over the strings, the bow moving back and forth, touching the instrument as lightly as a butterfly's wing. Every so often a passerby would toss a coin or two into the man's instrument case.

"Come on, you ninny!" Jaspert broke the musician spell by grabbing Deryn by the elbow and pulling her along. "If you stop at every panhandler when you get to London, you'll have just about spent all your time living on the streets."

"I was just having a look," Deryn said indignantly. "It seems to me as if you're more nervous than I am."

"I'm not nervous," he replied without looking at her. "I just want to get to London and get this bloody month over with."

As they walked through the train station, Deryn caught her reflection in a window. A boy stared back, with high and delicate feature. He would have looked soft, if it weren't for the look of determination in his eyes. Deryn grinned, as did the boy in her reflection.

They finally arrived at their platform, and placed their luggage down, waiting for the omni train to arrive. They were fifteen minutes early. Deryn grinned, using the time she had to watch the processions of people walk by.

She had never seen such an odd assortment of people in her life. Men and women dressed in fine clothes, and those who evidently could barely afford what they were wearing. Three well dressed men pushed passed her, engaged in a debate on Socrates and the theory of passive resistance. Deryn saw a group of women walking in her direction, wearing sandwich boards over their dresses. People would skirt around them or give them looks of displeasure, which the sandwich board-wearing women seemed to ignore. Deryn strained her eyes to see the signs. **VOTE IN SUPPORT OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE **was what they read. The women were handing out leaflets as they walked.

A pretty girl of about eighteen passed Deryn a leaflet.

"Why don't you go and give this to your girl back home, eh, soldier?" She said with a wink.

Not noticing the girl's advances, Deryn eagerly grabbed at the leaflet. A warning look from Jaspert froze her hand in midair.

"Men don't care for those things," he hissed in her ear. Then he smiled. "Besides, what would Mum say if she ever saw you with one of those leaflets?"

Deryn watched the suffrage fighters pass, feeling disappointed and frustrated.

Finally, the omni train pulled into the station. Deryn and Jaspert hung back, letting the other passengers board. Then they picked up their luggage and began to board.

At last, Deryn felt her heart pound with nervous tension. So much could go wrong on the train ride. She pushed Jaspert in front of her, making him face the ticket master first. Jaspert gave her an odd look, but said nothing, handing his ticket over. The ticket master checked that all his affairs were in order, and Jaspert boarded without any trouble. Before he began to walk toward their seats, Jaspert gave Deryn a reassuring grin.

Unfortunately, she was not reassured.

She pulled her luggage case with her, and climbed up the stairs, inwardly cursing her legs for shaking, just a little bit. The ticket master stared at her with a strange look on his face, as if he was sizing her up. Deryn's breath caught in her throat

"Oi!" The ticket master shouted at her. She froze. She waited to be discovered and shamed in front of an entire train station.

"You can't board the omni train without a ticket," the ticket master said to her, crossly.

Deryn let out a slightly hysterical laugh. In her panic and rush, she had forgotten to take out her ticket. Shakily, she handed him her ticket. He looked at it briefly, and looked back at her, his frown replaced with a smile.

"Everything seems to be in order," he said. "Have a good trip, lad."

Deryn felt like punching her fist in the air. She had past the first test. She walked to where she and Jaspert had seats. She slumped down next to her brother, grinning with a drunken sensation of triumph.

"What happened to you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I did it, Jaspert," she breathed. "I barking did it!"

"Did what?"

"I got on the train and no one suspected a thing!"

"Well, goodie for you," he said. "But you've got a month in London before your middie test."

"I'll conquer London in a day!"

Jaspert smirked. "I think you'll be a lot less cocky when the Air Service tests your air sense."

"There's no such thing as barking air sense!" Deryn cried.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out."

Deryn groaned and rested her head on the window as the train began to pull out of the station. It was going to be a long trip.


	4. Sharp Mind

**Sharp Mind**

_Like maggots and flies crawling on rotten food_, Deryn thought to herself. Perhaps it wasn't the most beautiful description of London, but that was what it reminded her of. A place absolutely swarming with people. Glasgow wasn't exactly small, but it felt so insignificant in comparison to the bustling metropolis that was London.

She swaggered her way through the busy streets. Because boys didn't walk, they _swaggered_.

She had been in London for three weeks, leaving only one more week before the midshipman's test. In the three weeks she had spent as a boy, no one had called her out on her ruse, or even looked at her twice. To the average passerby, she was merely some mundane boy.

She passed by a stand that sold newspapers, run by an old man. The papers were all brandishing the name of some lord or duke with an unpronounceable name. She bought an apple from the neighbouring fruit stall.

Rubbing the apple clean on her shirt, she tossed it into the air, deftly caught it and bit in with an audible crunch. Blisters, boy-swagger was easy to master.

"You there!"

Deryn broke into the same cold sweat that she hadn't felt since she thought she had been discovered while boarding the train to London. She slowly turned towards the voice, waiting for the speaker to ask why a daft girl was playing dress-up in her brother's clothing. No doubt they would think she was mad.

The speaker was the old man from the newspaper stand. He was short and paunchy, and was wearing a cap that Deryn suspected hid a hairless head. He had picked up one of the prints and was brandishing it in her direction.

She took deep breaths as she walked from the fruit cart to the newsstand. The man was squinting up at her through bloodshot eyes that were behind thick spectacles.

"I saw you look at the headlines, lad," the man said. "But then you turned away."

"Yes," Deryn said, not sure what he was getting at.

"Today's young men need to take it upon themselves to be educated," the news seller said, slapping a pile of papers for emphasis. "You can't just glance at important things and look away. They need to be mulled over."

"I'm… I'm not sure what you mean," Deryn stammered, unnerved by the little fellow. "What's so important?"

"A very important person, an archduke, has been murdered, while the people of Britain do nothing."

"Who's been murdered?"

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in Austria-Hungary," the man pointed at a sub-heading on one of the newspapers, which said exactly that.

"Well, that's sad, but Austria-Hungary is a Clanker nation," Deryn pointed out. "What's that got to do with us?"

"Ah, the ignorance of youth!" The man cried out. "You know nothing of the burdens in life."

"I'm not ignorant, thank you very much," she replied, feeling as confused as she was cross. "And, I know a lot more about the 'burdens in life' than you'd think."

"So you say," the old man said with a crooked smile. "But I'm sure what you would describe as a burden doesn't follow the same definition as other people's hardships."

A little unsettled and very annoyed by the conversation, Deryn rudely turned her heel and left the old man to his strange words. She still held her apple, but the single bite she had taken had turned brown from being untouched for nearly twenty minutes. In disgust, she threw it on the side of the road, where it rolled to a stop before being crushed by an omnibus.

Deryn suddenly stopped in her tracks, feeling as though an icy finger was running down her spine. She realized that she hadn't deepened her voice while talking to the man. Her new name, her clothes and her swagger would mean nothing if she couldn't fake a convincing boy's voice. She turned around to see the man grinning at her from his stall. She hurried back towards the room she was sharing with Jaspert.

"It doesn't matter if some barking old madman knows the truth," she whispered to herself as she walked. "The only people you'll have to convince are in the British Air Service. This is just practice."

With her heart thudding in her chest, she ran off, to preoccupied to remember even the name of the dead Clanker archduke.

_A/N- Well, the end is in sight for this story. There is only so much time between when Deryn went to London to when she took her middie's test. This means that the next chapter will be the final one. See you then!_


	5. Sharp Life

**Sharp Life**

_A/N- As I wrote previously, this is the final chapter. Nothing more can be done to it, after Deryn reaches the British Air Service. Thank you, dear readers, for your time and I do hope you enjoy this final little chapter._

Jaspert rolled his eyes.

"Hurry up, Dylan," he called to Deryn, who was busy looking at her own reflection in a shop window.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she replied. She straightened out her shirt and followed her brother, who was impatiently waiting with his arms folded across his chest.

It was the day that she had been anticipating and dreading in equal parts. That day, Deryn would become a midshipman for the British Air Service. Or, she would be sent home to Scotland.

_No,_ she told herself. _Failure isn't an option._

It really wasn't.

Down the street she could see a cluster of a few dozen men and a handful of Huxley ascenders dotted among them.

"Don't dawdle," she said to Jaspert, "Let's get down the barking road and not take all day!"

Jaspert looked at her, bewildered. "I'm walking regularly paced, what's the matter with you?"

"I'm just excited. And nervous," she added, increasing her speed. "But more excited than nervous. "

"Well, don't get too excited," Jaspert chided. "You'll lose your head, and blubber when you're spoken to."

"I've never done that!" She cried.

He shot her a quick look, all the humour gone from his face. "_Dylan_ your voice just went very high. If I didn't know you better, I'd have sworn you're a girl."

Deryn clasped her hand over her mouth at her brother's warning.

Deryn and Jaspert hurried along, passing people from all walks of life. A group of finely dressed young women walked past with their arms linked, while their chaperones trailed just behind them. When they passed a group of beggar children, one girl plucked a coin from her dress pocket and dropped it into the waiting hands of a young boy.

"Thank you," the boy called after the young woman. If she heard him, she paid no heed, and continued to walk with her friends.

Deryn couldn't help but grimace as she watched the encounter.

Jaspert pulled her along by her shirtsleeve.

"Dawdling, yet_ again_," he drawled.

"Shut it, ninny," she muttered as she turned her eyes back to their destination.

Within minutes they reached the group of people. Deryn scanned the other potential recruits, who were milling about with the actual airmen. She had already begun to place the potential recruits into two categories in her mind: British Air Service material and softies. There seemed to be quite a few softies. Hopefully.

Jaspert clasped his hand over her shoulder, jolting her back to reality.

"Good luck, Cousin Dylan," he said. "I know you've studied hard enough. And you know loads about flying. Just make sure to watch out for your air sense."

"There's no such thing as air sense," Deryn said through gritted teeth, although she did not at all feel reassured.

Jaspert looked at her and smiled. She saw that, despite his excessive teasing, he hoped that she would do well. She smiled back, cheered by that thought.

"Alright," she said, walking towards the others. "I'll show them what it means to have barking air sense."


End file.
